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Magic To The Bone (2008)

by Devon Monk(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0451462408 (ISBN13: 9780451462404)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Roc

series

Allie Beckstrom

review 1: Not sure what I was thinking when I picked up this book. From the description and other reviews this sounded kinda like a female version of The Dresden Files. The cover should have been a warning, but being the brave reader, I plowed forward. Actually it was a decent read but definitely from the female prospective. This novel fits in the paranormal romance genre. Luckily there is more paranormal than romance.Dust Jacket Summary: Using magic means it uses you back, and every spell exacts a price from its user. But some people get out of it by offloading the cost of magic onto an innocent. Then it’s Allison Beckstrom’s job to identify the spell-caster. Allie would rather live a hand-to-mouth existence than accept the family fortune-and the strings that come with it. But ... morewhen she finds a boy dying from a magical Offload that has her father’s signature all over it, Allie is thrown back into his world of black magic. And the forces she calls on in her quest for the truth will make her capable of things that some will do anything to control…What I liked: The magic system created by Devon Monk is inventive and is the most interesting aspect of the novel. In theory, each time someone uses magic there are repercussions such as memory loss, physical pain, etc. There are ways to get around the consequences by offloading into another person with or without their knowledge. As with normal life, the rich and powerful use the system to their full advantage.The two characters, Allie and Zayvion, are somewhat interesting. For my taste there is too much internal dialogue for Allie. She spends most of the book wondering about her feelings regarding Zayvion and she is continually saying one thing but doing another. That may be typical, but I did grow kinda bored with it after awhile.Surprisingly, I found Zayvion more interesting as the secretive guy with a mysterious background. He continually shows up at the right time and place to pull Allie out of some desperate situations. We learn a little of his background as the story goes on and I hope he has a stronger presence in future novels.What I didn’t like: In the end, I didn’t really care if Allie and Zayvion ended up together. I thought this storyline was pushed too much and at times over the top. For example, when Allie and Zayvion are discussing why their magic works so well together, Zayvion explains, “It is believed there is a Soul Complement for each person who uses magic.” Soul mates theory, really?The plot is somewhat secondary to the novel. Essentially, Allie is blamed for killing her father. Each person has a magic signature that can’t be duplicated and Allie’s signature is identified as what killed her father. The rest of the story is spent running from the police and another Hounder (a magic specialist hired to hunt down other magic users). I will admit that the eventual solution is believable within the ground rules laid out in the book. There just happens to be too many coincidences that lead the main characters to the major clues.Last word: Devon Monk is a fine writer and moves the plot along at good pace. In the end I moderately enjoyed the book, especially the magic system, but then again I was not the target audience. If you like urban fantasy with a touch of romance then you will thoroughly enjoy this novel.
review 2: I'm looking for a fantasy series that I can get into for a while - one longer than just a trilogy. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place by turning to the romance genre, but some of them just look so darn fascinating. I mean, look at that cover! Doesn't she just seem bad ass?The world of Allie Backstrom is one is which you don't just use magic, magic uses you. Each use of magic has a price, and it can be anything from a headache to lost memories to death. Magic is a kind of power source, and like electricity it comes from certain sources within the earth that have to be channeled through pipes or wires to make it available for people to use if they are not near one of these direct sources.I have mixed feelings about the magic in this world. It's definitely a new spin on things, but I tend to favor the idea of magic being an internal ability that not everyone has. That said, there were hints in this book of magic being more than is understood.This novel had a few small things going against it that just added up to too much for me to continue with it. For one, in the first half of the novel, Allie travels back and forth between two exact same places a total of three times. It felt completely unnecessary and redundant and it annoyed me.Second, Allie makes some seemingly irrational choices. She's poor and uses up her last $10 on the first cab ride. She continues to ride the cab after this and someone always pops up at the last minute to pay her fair. And then, at the very end, after traveling back and forth between these places repeatedly, she decides to forgo the cab and get on a bus because she has a pre-paid bus pass.I about fell about of my seat. When you're poor and you don't have money, you don't spend your last $10 that you could use for food on a cab ride when you have freaking pre-paid bus pass! In addition, there's several points in the novel when she wants to contact the police, but instead of having the cab take her to the police station, she has it take her somewhere she can call the police ... and then inevitably gets distracted and fails to do so. *headdesk*There's a scene in the middle of the night where there's some creepy guy who sees her looking at him out the window, and her response to this is to go outside where he is because she can't stand the thought of staying inside (where it's safer) when the creepy guy knows she's there. (what?!) She's doesn't even know the guy is coming after her. He just looked at her because she was looking at him from the window. There's six or seven dead bolts on the door, girl, you'll be fine. Chill.Lastly, the romance annoyed the crap out of me. She's just met this guy. He's been hired by her super controlling father (who Allie suspects may also be partial to murder) to spy on her. And the minute they're alone together, she just can't help herself over his oh-so-hot body, and throws herself at him.And then, after someone tries to kill her, spy-guy picks her up in his car to take her to safety. She's covered in blood and grime from walking through a garbage dump to escape her chasers and having found a near-dead body. Said body is lying unconscious in the seat next to her, and she and spy guy proceed to nearly have sex in the back of the car.Allie, girl, you are on the run from someone trying to kill you. For all you know, they are right behind you. There's a kid possibly dying in the seat next to you. You stink to high heaven. And spy-guy's trust worthiness is still in question. You do not stop to have sex in the back of a car! You are not a bag of teenage hormones devoid of all rational thought!There's some good elements to the story. Cody's story is really interesting and makes me want to continue. The magic element, how it is obtained and how it uses you back, is very intriguing. There's some very bad people doing some very bad things ... I wanted to like this, and I tried to keep reading. But at this point, I was half way through the book, and every time I opened it to continue I couldn't bring myself to do it. It just didn't seem worth dragging myself through. There's other books on my to re-read list, and I'd rather visit them.This and other reviews at heidisgoodreads.blogspot.com less

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